WILMINGTON — Zdeno Chara was kept off the ice for the second straight day as the Bruins held practice at Ristuccia Arena ahead of Saturday night’s preseason game against the Red Wings. Claude Julien said following the team’s first session that Chara, who left Thursday’s preseason game with an upper-body after three shifts, has been given the weekend off.

WILMINGTON — Zdeno Chara is “day-to-day” with an upper-body injury, according to Claude Julien. Chara left Thursday’s preseason game against the Rangers after three shifts, with a check from Ryan Bourque potentially doing the damage.

It’s worth considering that teams use “day-to-day” far more liberally than they should. Dennis Seidenberg, for example, was deemed day-to-day at the beginning of training camp, and though his back issue actually never got worse, the injury required surgery and will keep him out eight weeks.

The Bruins gave the players who played Thursday the day off on Friday. The forward lines in the practice were as follows:

Bruins captain Zdeno Chara left Thursday’s preseason game against the Rangers with what the team is calling an upper-body injury.

Chara played just three shifts, the last of which ended at 4:12 of the first, before leaving the game. He took a hit from Rangers forward Ryan Bourque on his final shift, with Chara being thrown into the boards as a result. He appeared to be carrying himself fine after the hit, however.

Following the game, Claude Julien offered no update on Chara’s situation. It goes without saying that the B’s don’t want to find out what an already changed team would look like if it had to head into the regular season without him.

“He’s always a huge component to our team,” Brad Marchand said. “He’s a huge leader on and off the ice; he’s such a strong presence. I don’t exactly know what happened, but hopefully he’s OK.”

Thursday marked Chara’s first game of the preseason. The 38-year-old is looking to have a healthy season after missing 19 games due to a torn PCL last season.

In what’s becoming a recurring tradition (because Hossa wins the Cup kind of often), the Bruins’ captain joined the Blackhawks forward for his day with the Cup this week. The two were joined by fellow Trencin native Marian Gaborik.

The Cup’s been to Trencin quite a bit in recent years; since 2011, there’s only been one year (2012) in which none of these guys won the Cup.

In case anyone was thinking Zdeno Chara might consider retirement after a disappointing 2014-15 season, the defenseman made it clear that’s not on his mind.

Speaking to Postmedia Network late last week, Chara said he wants to play out his contract, which runs through the 2017-18 season, and help the Bruins return to the postseason.

“My contract goes for another three years and I’d like to play until then,” he said. “I think we still have a competitive team with some good young players.

“Being out of the playoffs just makes you want to get back there even more.”

Chara dealt with some physical issues this past season — most significantly a torn ligament in his left knee that knocked him out of the lineup from Oct. 23 until Dec. 11. He also suffered a fractured ankle in April, keeping off the Slovakian roster for the World Hockey Championship in Prague. He said the one good thing about the Bruins missing the playoffs is it’s given him more time to recover.

“You’d rather be playing at this time of year,” he said. “But at the same time, it’s given me a chance to heal and that’s important.”

The Bruins announced Tuesday that Zdeno Chara has a non-displaced fracture of his left fibula that won’t require surgery but will have a four-week recovery time.

The injury was seemingly suffered when Chara blocked a shot from Maple Leafs forward David Booth on April 4. Chara missed a practice the following week but was hit on the other side of his left foot in the team’s next game with a shot from Capitals forward Joel Ward.

The injury did not cost Chara any games, as the B’s were still pushing for a playoff spot in the last four games of the season.

Chara said at last week’s breakup day that he was healthy and that he would have a full offseason to train. Even with the four-week recovery time, Chara should be able to train normally at some point in May.

It was reportedly earlier Tuesday that the injury would keep Chara out of the upcoming IIHF World Championship in the Czech Republic.

Zdeno Chara thinks he can be great if he stays healthy. (Alex Trautwig/Getty Images)

Zdeno Chara‘s PCL may be toast, but he says he’s got a healthy offseason ahead of him.

Chara will not require knee surgery after tearing the PCL on Oct. 23 and missing nearly two months. He admitted that he wasn’t right when in his first 10-15 games back.

“Obviously I was not looking good and [took] a lot of criticism for that, but that’s the only way you can do it,” he said. “What are you going to do? You’ve just got to play. You’ve just got to go through it and eventually you play out of it. It took me a number of games, but then I started feeling better and better, made more adjustments and honestly, towards the end I had no issues. I was skating back to normal. It just takes time.”

The ligament Chara tore is pretty much destroyed — he said “maybe 10 percent” is still attached – but it stabilized after two or three months. Chara, who will continue to wear a knee brace, feels the PCL will not be an issue this summer.

In the final week of the season, Chara was hit twice in the left ankle by shots. He said he is in fine health now heading into the offseason.

If that’s true, that will be a departure from the last couple of years. Chara played through injuries until the end of the last two seasons entering this year, with a hip issue hindering him in the 2013 Stanley Cup Final and broken fingers hurting his play against the Canadiens in the second round last season.

Instead of having to recover from such injuries in a relatively short offseason, Chara now has all of the spring and summer to train. He will continue to tweak his workout plan.

This season was a step back from Chara’s 2013-14 season, which was one of the best of his career and deserving of the Norris Trophy (he finished second). Asked whether he can tell after a season with injuries if he is still the same player, the 38-year-old was adamant in his response.

“I am,” he said. “Believe me, I will be.”

Continued Chara: “I know there’s a lot of questions asked about my age and this and that, but trust me, it’s not an issue. If it [wasn’t] an issue last year, why would it be this year? One year, you’re not going to lose everything.

“It’s something that an injury did happen, and obviously, it slowed down the whole season. As much as I would like to have a great season, it’s not going to happen when you miss two months off the ice and then it takes another month just to get your timing back. For sure, it’s not ideal. It’s difficult to deal with, but I will find a way to be [great] again. I have no doubt to be at my top performance.”